Tag Archives: Movember

Cheap Christmas Gifts Kids Will Actually Play With: Gravel

25 Nov

Even Batman is powerless against the allure of a gravel pile.

Finally, Black Friday!

Hopefully you were sleeping off the aftereffects of a wicked turkey bender and missed it entirely.

Because if you’re like me, going to Wal-Mart at any time on any day is a black occasion — dark, depressing, likely to induce eye-twitching and mass alcohol consumption regardless of the hour – so the prospect of banging carts down the aisles with hundreds of bargain-crazed spenders at midnight racing to claim the last Bieber Me Elmo (voice raises two octaves/ sings, “Baby, baby, baby, no…” repeatedly) isn’t appealing.

And it’s unnecessary.

Kids lose interest in those “hot” holiday toys in less time than it takes them to decide they have to go to the bathroom after you’ve put their snowsuits on.

So this Christmas, get your kids gifts they’ll actually play with, and, as an added bonus, are inexpensive. It’s a win-win, like Jello shots.

Here’s the first of five gifts that have staying-power.

A Pile of Gravel

This one’s so easy you’ll feel like you’re cheating: call a local construction materials supplier, order a load of gravel, have it dumped in front of your house, set a ribbon on top, and prepare to be voted awesome-sauce parent of the neighborhood by a landslide.

This is perfection on so many levels. One, a big-ass dump truck is going to deliver the goods, and kids go bananas for that type of thing. Two, it’s dirt cheap. You can get a literal ton of road base (sand/gravel mix) for like $20. Number three, nobody’s going to steal it, because when adults look at a pile of gravel, they know they’re looking at a pile of work.

Quarter! Holla!

But for whatever reason, when kids lay eyes on a pile of gravel, they see a pile of opportunity. I’ve witnessed our own children sit and sift for the better part of entire days in search of they-know-not-what, but that doesn’t seem to deter them in the least. Maybe it’s because kids still have that innocent, naive optimism where they believe that if they keep digging deeper and deeper, they’ll eventually unearth something magical and meaningful in what otherwise appears to be a massive mound of nothingness.

It’s similar to an adult’s justification for watching any of the Real Housewives franchises.

And if your children do start to lose interest in the pile, you simply plant a few coins near the surface, pick one out and yell, “OMG! A whole quarter!” and the kids’ll start digging again with the gusto of amateur archeologists.

Plus, they’ll have hundreds of thousands of rocks to wash, and we all know how much kids love that.

Next time on Cheap Christmas Gifts Kids Will Actually Play With, we’ll take a look at all of those junk electronics you have sitting around the house.

*****

While we’re on the subject of kids, head over to Stuff Kids Write and check out “Holy Gwockomoly: This Birthday Card is Be. A. Utiful.” The 7-year-old author of this piece is my nephew. He’s a character. You’ll see.

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Friday Four: Plunging, fishing, Hellcat spotting, and Leroy farewelling.

3 Dec

Where did last week go?

Is it under the couch cushions, along with the remote control, MIA Star Wars figures, and half-eaten apple slices?

Is there such a thing as non-essential Weird Al?

Last week flew by like Perpetual Motion hot-on-the-heels of a butterfly. It’s already Friday Four time, so let’s get right to it, starting with the painful realization that I am not the next “Weird Al” Yankovic. (But I mean, really, who could be?)

1. The day I plunged this blog’s integrity down the toilet.

Monday, I posted lyrics to “Day of the Plunger,” what I thought was an ingenious retooling of Survivor’s epic hit “Eye of the Tiger.” After publishing, I fully expected my WordPress stat-o-meter to start spinning faster than the Griswolds’ utilities gauge after Clark finally gets the Christmas lights figured out. Fingers stretched out and limbered up, I readied myself to type witty replies and gracious words of thanks in response to all of the glowing compliments I was going to receive on my lyrical genius.

What I got instead was the soundtrack to the Broadway musical Crickets Chirping.

This blog’s esteemed readership didn’t seem to be that hip on my rendering. I was flabbergasted. The formula I used seemed fool-proof:

bathroom humor + Thanksgiving + 80’s rock classic = Solid Gold

Apparently, not so much. Thank God I didn’t include a link to the audio version I recorded using my only-on-really-special-occasions Justin Bieber voice.

2. The day that the annual celebration of Kick Ass Wife’s birth rolled up its sleeve and fished this blog’s integrity out of the toilet.

The response to yesterday’s post wishing Kick Ass Wife a happy 16th birthday? Just what I had expected to happen with the “Day of the Plunger” post: pure adulation. And I didn’t do anything more than take knives away from the kids and ask them a few questions.

So songs about clogging the crapper are crap but anecdotes about adorable little kids doing and saying precious things that show how much they love their wonderful mother are a ratings bonanza?

Well, when you put it that way…

The Hellcat and the rest of the Species brood.

3. Is that the Hellcat?

I had one of the pictures from our family photo shoot framed and it just so happened that I received a call on Wednesday, the day before KAW’s birthday, telling me it was finished, so I was able to surprise her with it on her birthday. One thousand husbanding bonus points.

What’s funny, though, is that when I went to pick up the picture, the gal who framed it told me, “Someone else was in here earlier today, and when she saw that picture, she pointed to your little girl and said, ‘That must be the Hellcat.’”

4. Leroy, adieu.

Today, I bade farewell to Leroy, my Movember moustache whom I mistakenly described as a handlebar  but who was in fact more of a Fu Manchu. Leroy helped me to reach a whole new level of facially-haired dorkiness, and together we were able to raise about $700 for men’s cancer awareness through the generosity of others. A special thanks to those who donated.

It was definitely a worthwhile endeavor, especially considering that my typical clean-shaven dorkiness really benefits no one.

Oh, and by the way, Leroy totally got “Day of the Plunger.” He was down with it.

Leroy, until next Movember, my friend.

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Friday Four: Play-DOH!, sans pants, a Hellcatecdote, and my ridiculous upper lip.

20 Nov

Without further ado, a bi-randomly installment of the Friday Four. Because at some point you just have to say, “Hey, enough ado already. Get on with it.”

If a PLAY-DOH village was bombed with PLAY-DOH, it would look like this.

1. Parents should join together and file a class-action lawsuit against the purveyors of PLAY-DOH.

Seriously. This isn’t just me being cynical. I think it would be a slam-dunk victory in a court of law because if you check out the FAQs at the official PLAY-DOH site, you’ll realize that these people knew damn well what they were doing when they started selling this stuff. I’ve taken the liberty of paraphrasing:

1. Is there any chance that my kids are going to eat this stuff? Uh, is there any chance that your kids aren’t going to eat this stuff? They’re going to be packing their cheeks with this crap faster than a squirrel that has fallen into a trailer-full of pistachios. Okay, will it hurt them? Probably not. (Officially, “PLAY-DOH compound is non-toxic, non-irritating & non-allergenic,” which is non-accurate because I can tell you that it can be plenty-irritating.) So does it have nutritional value? No less than that bowl of cereal your kid ate this morning, but not quite as healthy as that bug she choked down five minutes ago.

2. If PLAY-DOH gets ground into the carpet or furniture upholstery or my kid’s head, how do I remove it? You don’t. If it’s in the carpet, buy a rug. Smeared onto the couch? Reach up into the top of the closet and pull out one of the seventeen afghans you got for your wedding and cover it up. Your kid’s head? Just give him a pair of scissors: he’ll take care of it.

3. How can we keep our PLAY-DOH from drying out so quickly? Quit letting your kids play with it.

4. How can we keep the different colors of PLAY-DOH from getting mixed together? Did you read number three?

Of course, kids love the stuff, so we have an entire tub of PLAY-DOH paraphernalia labeled “MISERY” that we bring out occasionally when the kids need to exercise their creativity a bit or when we haven’t been to the grocery store in a couple of days. This tub is home to every imaginable instrument of PLAY-DOH manipulation known to childkind, and no less than 58 canisters of exactly the same color: greenish-brownish-grayish with bluish-redish flecks.

Blah.

Sure, the lids would suggest that there is a broad palette of differently-colored PLAY-DOH ready for molding, and at one time, when the canisters sat on the shelf in the store where they were purchased, that was the case. Now it’s just 20 pounds of “blah” in five dozen three-ounce containers.

But, in a moment of self-inflicted graciousness, I set up PLAY-DOH central for the kids a couple of days ago while Kick Ass Mom was gone.

Needless to say, FAQs #1-4 were fully evident, and there are a couple more that I would add to the list:

5. Why, when there are hundreds of “tools” available, will Perpetual Motion and the Hellcat decide simultaneously that the broken mini rolling-pin is the absolutely-have-t0-have-it-can’t-live-without-it-my-masterpiece-will-be-ruined-if-I-don’t-get-it-right-now-I’m-going-to-throw-the-nearest-available-object-at-your-head-so-you-know-I-mean-business accessory? What? You lost us at “masterpiece.”

6. How can Tax Credit #4 down a couple of canisters of PLAY-DOH, process it, pass it, and end up with a mass in his diaper that is nearly identical in shape and hue to the blob that he originally ate? It’s like corn.

Liberation.

#2: Oh, and one more question…

7. Why would one PLAY-DOH with his pants down? It’s liberating. No different than you golfing with your pants down or wood-working with your pants down (that’s what she said). Roll with it.

#3. Get it right, Daddy.

So, as I mentioned way back here, we have this reward system set up for our kids based on these marble jars. Earlier this week, the Hellcat went into full-fledged screaming, shrieking, crying outburst mode for some reason that I can’t even recall, and in the midst of her meltdown, she came over and whacked me in the leg. “Alright, Pippy. I’m taking two marbles out of your jar. We don’t hit people.”

The Hellcat immediately flipped the switch on her fit, walked directly to the counter, and reached into her jar.

“No, daddy. You take out three marbles when we hit,” she calmly informed me.

Really, what am I around for?

#4: So about my ridiculous upper lip…

I am currently sporting a moustache, although it could easily be mistaken for some type of small, malnourished, mange-infested vermin that crawled up under my nose and died. It is, in a word, ridiculous.

But it’s for a good cause. If you haven’t heard of Movember, it is an international campaign to bring awareness to cancers in men by encouraging males worldwide to grow moustaches during the month of November. Some sobering statistics:

·     1 in 2 men will be diagnosed with cancer in his lifetime.

·     1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime.

My dad and my uncle have both had cancer, in addition to several other individuals that I know, and I thought that this would be an opportunity to contribute in some way to the fight against this bastard of a disease.

If you would like to aid this effort, please make a donation to support the great work of the Prostate Cancer Foundation and LIVESTRONG.  To help, you can either:

-  Click this link http://us.movember.com/mospace/1287192/ and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account.

-  Write a check payable to “Movember,” referencing my name or registration number 1287192, and mail it to: Movember, P.O. Box 2726, Venice, CA 90294-2726.

Thanks for any assistance that you may be able to offer, and here’s to hoping that one day Movember turns into a month of moustaches to celebrate the cure for all forms of cancer.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

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